


This is What They Say

by natacup82



Category: Monsta X (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Anal Sex, Breaking Up & Making Up, Divorce, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Idiots in Love, M/M, didn't know they were married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:08:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natacup82/pseuds/natacup82
Summary: Kihyun thought that when he signed the divorce papers that would be the last time he'd ever have to think about being married to Yoongi, he was wrong.
Relationships: Min Yoongi | Suga/Yoo Kihyun
Comments: 26
Kudos: 90
Collections: Himbo Hive





	This is What They Say

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to missp for the quick beta, any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Also shout out to the 5 people on twitter who are always down to yell about these two and how weird they have been about each other, truly the real MVPs.

Kihyun doesn’t know anything is wrong until he walks into the meeting and finds himself alone with half of their Korean PR team and Eshy. He’s immediately on edge; the last time they walked into something like this their lives were in chaos for months. Now they’re just looking to talk to him and he doesn’t know what to expect.

“Please sit down,” Park Eunji says as Kihyun closes the door behind him. She’s been on their PR team since they debuted and she’s always been relatively no-nonsense but Kihyun can’t get a read on her. 

He sits down, takes a deep breath and looks around the table. “What’s going on,” he asks, hands clenched in his lap. They’ve all been so well behaved, they haven’t done anything, haven’t entertained doing anything that could give even a whiff of scandal. The tour has been successful, the fans have been happy to have them all back together again and he wants to finish the tour and get on the plane to return home without any new bullshit popping up. 

Park Eunji gives him a look he can’t untangle. “There’s a report being published by Dispatch in a few days,” she says, with a sigh. “One of the new managers has a friend there so we got a warning this time.” 

“Okay,” Kihyun says looking around at the worried faces around the table. “What’s in the report? I haven’t done _anything_ , my whole life has been my team.”

“It says that you and Min Yoongi are about to celebrate your sixth wedding anniversary,” Park Eunji says, voice serious. 

Kihyun laughs. He can’t help it, it pops out of him involuntarily and once it starts he’s practically crying with it. “Oh my god,” he says nearly hiccupping in his laughter. He tries to calm down and manages to force out, “I’m not fucking married,” before he has to put his head down and laugh some more. 

The thing is, the thing that makes it all so funny is that he _was_ married for one stupid, hopeful year before everything fell apart. He’s been unmarried for longer than he was ever married and been back on barely speaking terms with Yoongi for longer than they were together. 

He gets control of himself, wipes the tear that’s trying to fall out of his eye and shakes his head. “I don’t know what they’re looking at but I’m not married,” Kihyun says looking over at the very unamused face of Park Eunji.

“Do you have the divorce papers filed?” she asks, voice serious.

Kihyun scoffs. “No,” he says, not denying that he _had_ been married. “Yoongi took care of it and then we didn’t speak for a year like adults.”

“Did he ever confirm that he’d completed the process?”

“I signed paperwork,” Kihyun says, frowning against the tide of horror that’s rising in him. “I literally met him at some shitty bar and signed the papers and he was going to file them, it’s the last thing I trusted him to do.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry,” she starts. 

Kihyun swears under his breath. “I’m going to kill him.”

Park Eunji ignores him. “But it sounds like your ex did not file your divorce papers in time and they were voided. You’re still married.”

“Fuck,” Kihyun says, sinking back in the chair closing his eyes. 

*  
He doesn’t remember what the meeting is like when they tell the rest of the members, he’s zoned out in rage and anxiety but they all shuffle off to their hotel in silence. Kihyun is thankful the whole way up in the elevator that he has his own room on this tour and their next show isn’t for another day. 

It’s a relief to step off the elevator onto their floor and a greater relief to slide the card in and step into his room even as his members file in behind him.

He kicks off his shoes, flops face-first on the bed, and doesn’t worry about where any of the rest of them are going to sit. Just this once, Kihyun is allowed to be selfish and angry, even if he can’t be alone. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Hoseok asks, rubbing a hand in soothing circles across his back. He doesn’t, _ever_ , but this impacts all of them so he doesn’t even get to do that.

He sighs, into the pillows and hopes that conveys all of his feelings on all of this. 

“Eunji noona says we’re going to Chicago after the show tomorrow,” Hyunwoo says from the other bed. Kihyun turns his head toward his voice and finds Hyunwoo, Changkyun, and Hyungwon all piled on that bed and he assumes Jooheon and Minhyuk are somewhere on his bed with him and Hoseok. 

“Why?” Kihyun asks, finally speaking after what feels like hours. He’s felt like his tongue has gotten glued to the roof of his mouth, like any words he said would just make this worse, make it even more real. 

“We have a meeting with Big Hit,” Hyunwoo says, with a frown as he looks at his phone. “I think they’re going to let them handle all of the media stuff.”

Kihyun snorts. “Which means somehow all of the shit is going to hit us worse, wonderful.”

“You don’t know that they’re going to do that,” Hyungwon says, from his spot on the other bed. “This is just as much of a scandal for them.”

Minhyuk snorts. “No, it’s not.”

Kihyun can’t see him but he feels a body flop down next to him on the bed and a familiar arm curl across his back. “Even if they say we’re all fucked it’s going to be worse for us.”

“All of this is a nightmare,” Kihyun says, burying his face in the pillow again. “The only thing he had to do was file the fucking paperwork, he volunteered to do it! “

Hoseok hums, still rubbing his back. “Have you tried calling him? Seeing if he has an explanation?” 

“Why would I still have my ex’s phone number?” Kihyun asks, looking over his shoulder at Hoseok. “I haven’t said more than a handful of words to him since 2017. And I seriously doubt he can explain screwing up this much.”

“Maybe he didn’t really want to and he just put it off until it was too late,” Changkyun says from the other bed. Kihyun rolls his eyes and sits up, anger pooling in his belly. 

He looks over at Changkyun. “It was his idea, he wanted to get divorced and he made it very clear that he wasn’t sure if he still loved me, trust me he wanted to do it.”

“Okay, so we hate him now right?” Minhyuk says. He looks ready to fight when Kihyun glances over at him. “I’m pretty sure this means he’s our enemy.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to hate anyone for me, I don’t even hate him anymore,” Kihyun says and he’s surprised to find he means it. “I’d rather someone who didn't love me tell me, rather than stringing me along just so they don’t hurt my feelings later. This just sucks,” he says, shaking his head. 

They all pile on his bed with him, and he finds himself in the center of a seven-person hug and Jooheon says, “It does suck but we’re going to get through it together, okay?” 

Kihyun nods and says, “Okay,” and hopes that having his brothers with him will make this a little bit better. 

*  
The next day passes by in a blur of rehearsals and interviews and prep for their show but Kihyun is glad for the distraction. He’s still angry and sad but the time on stage spurs him on and by the time they’re leaving the stage after the encore he almost feels happy. 

After that things are a rush to get through send-off and on the way to the airport; they’ve already checked out of their hotels and sent their luggage on ahead with staff so they’re all down to small overnight bags and still in their ending ment t-shirts. It’s stressful but they’re out, at the airport, through security, and boarding their flight within a few hours. 

It’s a short flight to Chicago from Detroit but Kihyun can’t be too happy about it. Nothing about the last few days have made him happy and he can’t see how flying to a city that’s not the next stop on their tour to have a meeting with someone else’s label is going to change that. By the time they land and make their way through the airport, they’re all exhausted and barely functional, just following the managers to the cars without really looking up or taking note of where they’re going. It’s more of the same when they get to their hotel, piling into the elevator and following mindlessly as the manager leads them to a floor and hands out key cards while pointing them in the right direction. 

Kihyun is glad at least for a room of his own, he’d been worried they might have skimped out since this is an extra trip but for once they’ve exceeded his expectations. He washes his face, strips off his clothes and passes out as soon as his phone is plugged in with the alarm set. 

His alarm goes off sooner than he’d hoped, as the sun is rising over Chicago; Kihyun had slept terribly, waking up over and over in a panic that Dispatch had already posted and his reputation and career were destroyed. But there’s nothing yet, just the usual nonsense so he gets up, showers and gets dressed in the one change of clothes he has with him and heads out into the hotel to get coffee. 

Kihyun is in line at the in-hotel Starbucks when he notices someone speaking Korean and turns and spots one of the BTS managers he remembers in line. He quickly turns back to the barista, glad that he grabbed his sunglasses on the way down and prays that his order is done quickly. Somehow in the post-show scramble to get to the airport and the hotel he hadn’t bothered to wonder, to _ask_ where they were staying and how exactly they’d gotten these rooms so he feels blindsided and stupid. 

Of course, they’re staying in the same hotel; it has conference rooms and great security and it reduces the risks associated with a meeting like this. He keeps a wary eye out the whole way back up to his room, sighing in relief when the elevator opens on his floor. 

It’s only forty-five minutes later that the managers start knocking on their doors to head out to the meeting. Kihyun is right in his assumption that they’re meeting in the hotel, as they take the elevator down to the twelfth floor. And now that he’s truly paying attention he can tell that this hotel is just slightly too nice for all of them to be in their own rooms; it’s fancy for the sake of being fancy and probably just as expensive. If it’s coming out of their touring budget he’s going to scream.

They step out onto a floor of conference rooms and walk down to a room that’s set up for a meeting, one long table with chairs on either side of it. There’s enough room on one side for all seven of them, the two managers that traveled with them, their PR, and the lawyers Kihyun knows Starship has sent over. He wonders if this space, this hotel, is some kind of intimidation tactic but then he pushes that aside, there’s nothing they could be trying to intimate him into doing; he willingly signed divorce papers and he’ll do it again to get this to go away. 

A few more minutes pass in tense silence before their lawyers arrive along with Park Eunji, followed closely by what Kihyun assumes are the Big Hit lawyers and then BTS and their managers. Kihyun rolls his eyes when Yoongi takes the seat directly across from him -he looks like he hasn’t slept in days but they’re all on tour and exhausted and Kihyun doesn’t have the energy to feel bad for anyone right now - but otherwise doesn’t react as one of the managers closes the door. 

It’s quiet for a few moments before Park Eunji starts talking. “We should get started sooner rather than later since we have a flight to catch this afternoon,” she says looking at the Big Hit team. “I assume everyone is aware of why we’re here?” she asks and continues on at everyone’s nods. “Obviously this is a delicate issue. And we all want to ensure that this situation results in minimal damage. But we think we have something on our side.”

“What?” Namjoon asks from the other side of the table. “Things have been explained as being pretty bleak to us.”

Park Eunji nods at him. “Things are pretty bleak, but our team on the ground in Seoul has confirmed that there is no record of Min Yoongi acquiring the divorce papers so that at least gives us some options.”

“How exactly is that good news?” Kihyun asks before he can second guess himself. “I was under the impression that this was going to be a dash to file before Dispatch started reporting.”

The Big Hit PR person -- Kihyun was too zoned out to remember his name-- sighs. “That was the original plan, quickly file and bribe someone to backdate it so it looks like you two just took a youthful joke too far. We had a whole packet ready to roll.”

“Feels like there’s a but coming here,” Namjoon says, looking down the table. Yoongi hasn’t looked up at all since they’ve been talking, studying his hands like this isn’t all his goddamn fault.

“The law firm that drew up the original papers shut down; there’s just no filed record of them even being drafted so we can’t quickly file and,” Park Eunji says and then pauses to look at the other PR manager. “We can’t just control the narrative in that way so we’ll have to pivot to plan B.” 

All around the table people nod but Kihyun watches Park Eunji in stillness. He knows there’s a bigger _but_ coming, he can feel it and it can’t be good.

Park Eunji looks down the table at Kihyun. That is something he’s always respected with her, she’ll deliver news to his face, directly and unflinching even when it’s bad; _especially_ when it’s bad. 

“After several hours in conference and running possible worst-case scenarios for both companies we’ve decided the best path forward is to let the rumor break, confirm it and say that you’ve kept your relationship quiet to focus on your careers and ask for privacy.”

Kihyun blinks at her. “What,” he asks, sure he’s heard things wrong, they can’t expect this to work. “You can’t be serious.”

“What would we have to do?” Yoongi asks, speaking up for the first time since they’ve been in this conference room. He doesn’t look up from where he’s staring at his hands. Before, when he knew him Kihyun would think he was nervous and covering it up with disinterest but now he just doesn’t know. 

Kihyun jerks around to look at him, eyes wide. It’s the first time he’s heard Yoongi’s voice this close in a long while, they’ve barely exchanged a handful of words in years. “You cannot possibly think this is a good idea,” Kihyun says, voice clouded with dismay. 

Yoongi shrugs. “It makes the most sense.”

“Kihyun-ssi it does make the most sense,” Park Eunji says. “We’re minimizing the scandal by presenting this as a love story centered on protecting your reputations and careers.”

Kihyun snorts. “No one is going to believe this,” he says, but stops arguing as everyone looks at him, nodding along to this ridiculous plan. All of the fight goes out of him and he lets Minhyuk rub his neck as the PR team lays out the plan.

*  
Everyone believes it. 

Kihyun would be impressed if he wasn't so disgusted by how quickly people accept the idea that he and Yoongi have been hiding a relationship for six damn years, like anyone has the time or the energy to maintain that. 

They land at Incheon two weeks after the news hits Dispatch, a week after Big Hit and Starship released a joint statement asking for privacy, and three days after the end of the tour to an airport in chaos. They’ve always had press at the airport when they leave for tour and return home but it’s never been this bad.

Their managers rush them through the airport and out to the waiting cars, heads down as they move as quickly as they possibly can without falling.

“What the hell was that?” Changkyun asks as they pull out onto the streets. “They can’t still be on the Dispatch thing, right?”

“It’s still the number one trending item on Naver,” one of the staff, Heejae, says from the front seat. “It’s going to be like this for a little while.”

Kihyun groans. He’d been afraid of this, they’d managed to avoid any questions on it for a little while in America but it wasn’t long before the entertainment reporters were all trying to sneak in questions about it and the morning show hosts were trying to joke with him about being an old married man. He’s not proud of how quickly he feigned misunderstanding English, but it was necessary. He’d assumed, _hoped_ that they’d miss most of the press about the scandal but they’re never that lucky. 

“How bad is it?” Kihyun asks, not shrugging off the arm Hoseok puts around his shoulder or the hand Changkyun drops on his knee. He doesn’t need to be comforted, exactly, but it’s been a rough few weeks and he needs something to lean into before he knows how bad it’s going to be. 

Heejae frowns. “It’s not bad exactly,” she says playing with her ear. “Do you know how some fans write internet stories about you? And sometimes they’re about you and your members and other times they’re about you and them?”

“Yes,” Kihyun answers, growing more and more nervous at what that could possibly have to do with this. 

“Well,” she says, tapping out a rhythm on the center console. “Apparently quite a few of them thought that you and Min Yoongi had a vibe.”

“A vibe,” Kihyun says flatly. “Noona, what kind of vibe?”

“Like a ‘we broke up’, kind of vibe?” Heejae says with a nervous laugh. “So now they think you were doing that to throw people off and it’s all very romantic and star crossed. The bulk of the reaction has not been bad. But it’s been a little intense so you’ll all be staying at a hotel tonight.”

Kihyun blows out the breath he’s been holding and sighs. It’s weird. The reaction, the situation, everything. 

“This is a good thing right?” Hoseok asks, after a moment of quiet. “This means people aren’t treating it like some horrible scandal.”

Changkyun frowns. “I mean. It’s good that it’s not a scandal but if people are that interested they’re going to start wondering and asking invasive questions. 

“They’re going to be weird about it,” Kihyun says with a sigh. “And they’re going to want us to go on variety shows together or be weird about how we interact on end of year shows, it’s all going to be bad.”

“But,” Hoseok says with a frown. “It could be a good thing, right? You used to be friends before everything,” he says. Kihyun appreciates him trying to be hopeful and diplomatic about it but he’s barely said two words to Yoongi in years and he doubts that being forced to do this in public is going to help. 

Kihyun laughs. “I’m going to have to explain to my mother why I never told her about any of this. She is going to kill me, bring me back from the dead and then kill me again.”

Hoseok’s eyes go wide. “Did you not tell her when you got married?” he asks, and as Kihyun looks up to answer he notices that Heejae and Changkyun are watching and waiting for his answer and their driver keeps looking in the rearview at them.

Kihyun snorts. “No, because at the time I thought my parents might react badly to the whole marrying a boy I knew for only a year who was not from our church and working to be an idol and all that,” he says with a wave of his hand. “And then when everything imploded it just seemed like it was better that I hadn’t told them.”

“Yikes,” Changkyun says and Kihyun laughs.

“Yeah,” Kihyun says with an unhappy sigh, glad to see they’re pulling up to the hotel. “I’m not looking forward to that call, it’s gonna suck.”

They all get out of the car, shuffling all of their carry on bags together, and once again Kihyun is glad they send their bigger bags along after them with some of the other staff. They’ll be delivered and ready for them in the morning which is better than having to trip over them now. 

He heads to bed early, leaving his phone on the charger but off so he can avoid his parents for a few more hours and crashes into a deep, dreamless sleep. 

*  
Kihyun wakes up the next morning and braces himself to handle whatever is coming his way. He turns on his phone and grimaces as it vibrates non stop for five minutes. When it’s finally done he has four calls from his mother, two from his brother and one from an unknown number; the texts are too numerous to even count. 

He calls his mom first to get it over with, not even bothering to look at the texts or wonder about the unknown number. 

She yells at him for fifteen minutes, which he expected and then cries, which he doesn’t and he’s not sure what to do. By the time he hangs up he’s made a promise to bring her son in law home for dinner and feels like he’s been through a whirlwind. 

He systematically works his way through his missed calls, speaking to every member of his extended family, including his brother who just sighs at him when Kihyun facetime him to tell him the truth of it all. 

“This might be a chance for you to get back together,” he says, five minutes before signing off. “I remember you back then, you were really happy with him.” Kihyun doesn’t have the chance to explain before his brother has to get back to work and he feels frustrated and backed into a corner. No one really understands how stupid this all is, how much it makes him wish he was the type to run away from his problems. 

He scrolls through his text messages, mainly from friends, stopping to laugh at the one that’s just exclamation points and ‘hyung, how could you not tell me, hyyuuuuunnng,’ from Mingyu. Kihyun taps out a quick message back and returns to his missed calls, thumb hovering over the unknown number before he hits call and hopes for the best. 

At worst it’s someone from Dispatch trying to get a statement after finding out his personal number, at best it’s probably one of the many people from Big Hit they’ve had to talk to over the last few days. It rings for a few minutes and then it clicks over and Kihyun hears, ‘hello’, in a tone that still makes a pit open up in his stomach. 

“Yoongi,” Kihyun says, already feeling off-kilter. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize the number.”

“Kihyun-ah,” Yoongi says, voice quiet. “It’s fine, I got your number from one of the PR people and I wasn’t sure if you’d have gotten mine.”

Kihyun shakes his head, then remembers he hasn’t switched on the video option, and is briefly deeply glad he hasn't. “Oh, no. No, I hadn’t asked. We just got back last night and couldn’t even go back to our dorm, my main priority was to sleep.”

“Right, right,” Yoongi says, humming over the line. “How are you? With,” he pauses weighing his words. “With everything.”

Kihyun sighs. “I’ve been better; my mom cried.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Yoongi says, breath coming in heavy over the phone. 

“How did this happen Yoongi?” Kihyun asks. He hasn't had a chance to press him on this, doesn’t know if he even would have bothered if Yoongi didn't call him from an unknown number but they’re there now. “I signed the papers when you asked, I put them directly in your hands, what happened?”

Yoongi sighs. “Honestly?” he asks and then barrels on. “I have no idea. We were so busy and I was so stressed it’s like I filed them away as soon as you signed them, like by signing it was done.”

“I’m too tired to strangle you but know that I’m thinking about it,” Kihyun says, flopping onto his back in bed. “I can’t believe you just forgot to do it because you were busy. You asshole.”

“I am sorry, you know,” Yoongi says, voice muffled for a minute. “You’ve had a hard enough year already, you didn’t need this.”

Kihyun snorts. “Did you leak it to Dispatch?”

“No,” Yoongi scoffs. “Of course not.”

“Then it’s not completely your fault,” Kihyun says with a sigh. “You’re still a dumbass though.”

“Yeah, I am,” Yoongi says as Kihyun’s phone vibrates next to his ear. “So how have you been? Other than all of this, we don’t really talk anymore, so you know. I’ve been wondering.”

“Hang on a sec,” Kihyun says, not really hearing Yoongi as he puts his phone on speaker and pulls up the text he just got. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Kihyun says, sitting up in bed. “Oh my god.”

“What’s wrong?” Yoongi asks and Kihyun remembers he’s on speaker and he forgot to hit mute and it’s just one more _thing_ on top of the constant barrage of things. 

Kihyun groans. “Did I tell you I’m in a hotel right now? I’m in a hotel right now and based on this text I’m probably staying in a hotel for the foreseeable future.”

“Why?”

“Apparently, while we were on tour our dorm was infested with bugs. It’s going to be unlivable for a month,” Kihyun says with a sigh. He’s just gotten back from living in hotels for months, he doesn’t want to do it some more this close to home. He wants a kitchen and a bathroom that’s not cleaned by strangers and to just be home already. 

Yoongi doesn’t say anything for a minute and Kihyun wonders if he’s gotten distracted doing something else or wandered away rather than hear about this gross, stupid problem.

“You could stay with me,” Yoongi says, into the quiet. “I have a guest room in my apartment and I’m staying there while we’re on break, so, if you want.”

“Yoongi,” Kihyun says, unsure how he’s feeling. “Hang on I’m going to facetime you,” he adds and then switches to video. He waits until Yoongi appears on the screen, looking just as he looked when he saw him in America. “We broke up almost four years ago and you want me to move in with you while my dorm is fumigated? What about the rest of my team?”

Yoongi shrugs. “We’ll figure something out. Between my team and yours we could find space for everybody.”

“You can’t be serious, we can’t live together!”

“Why not?” Yoongi asks, frowning on the screen. “You need a place to stay, I have the space. And we’re married.”

Kihyun snorts at that. “In name only! We’ve barely had a conversation in years!” Kihyun says, voice rising. It’s not that it’s a bad idea, it’s a terrible idea - they never even lived together when they were married, they never got the chance - and now with all of this happening around it? It’s a recipe for disaster. 

“Right,” Yoongi says, speaking slowly. Like he’s working through his response as he speaks. “And we both know it’s only a matter of time before our PR team decides we should do an interview about our relationship.”

“That’s-” Kihyun starts before stopping abruptly. He’s not wrong, they will most likely have to do an interview at some point and he can’t honestly say he really even knows Yoongi anymore. 

Yoongi watches him think it over and smiles. “You know I’m right.”

“I hate that you’re right, but yeah, I guess this makes sense,” Kihyun says with a sigh. “We should run it past our teams and PR folks first. They might think it’s a bad idea.”

“Okay,” Yoongi says, smiling at him. “I gotta run but we should talk later, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kihyun says, and hangs up, flopping back onto the bed. “Damn it.”

*  
Kihyun moves in three days later after numerous conversations with his members and their PR team and his members again. They’re out of their dorms for three weeks, with no public schedules as they finish work on their fall comeback and Kihyun isn’t sure how any of this is going to work. 

Yoongi isn’t home when Kihyun shows up with his stuff, but there’s a note in the living room about making himself at home and a sticky note on the door of the guest room so he knows where to store his stuff. 

Still, it’s strange to be in Yoongi’s space without him. Just because he says he’s okay with Kihyun staying here doesn’t mean it’ll be really true when it’s just them in the apartment. So he unpacks but leaves a suitcase open in the corner in case he needs to make a quick exit back to a hotel. 

After he’s settled in, he sends a quick text to Yoongi letting him know he got in okay and then heads out for his recording session and tries not to think about Yoongi or this living situation for the rest of the day. It’s late when he finally leaves the studio, voice rough from singing and brain little more than a pile of mush and he almost tries to redirect the car to the dorm before he remembers, _abruptly_ , that none of them are staying in the dorm; they’re not even staying together. 

The car comes to a stop in front of Yoongi’s building and Kihyun feels a wave of anxiety wash over him. If he’s lucky Yoongi isn’t home yet, keeping up his habit of working well into the night and Kihyun can slip into his room without the worry of waking him up or having to have an awkward conversation. 

But he hasn't been very lucky lately and that holds as he keys in the door code and finds Yoongi sitting on the couch, headphones on and computer open on his lap. He looks up when Kihyun opens the door and clicks something on his computer before pulling the headphones down around his neck. 

“Hey,” Yoongi says, closing the lid of his computer. 

Kihyun nods at him and says, “Hi.” And then they stare at each other not speaking, both unsure how to go from there. Kihyun hasn’t been alone with Yoongi since the day he signed the divorce papers and now that they’re here in this apartment all of his words have fled.

“Well,” Kihyun starts at the same time Yoongi says, “So,” and they both laugh, but it’s a little bit forced and a lot awkward. Kihyun gestures at Yoongi and says, “You first.”

Yoongi coughs, clearing his throat and says, “Sorry I wasn’t here when you brought your stuff over. Did you have any trouble?”

Kihyun shakes his head. “No, it was fine. We’re both busy, it’s not a big deal.”

Yoongi nods. “Are you just getting in from practice?”

“Recording,” Kihyun says. He’s still standing, caught between trying to escape to his room and not being rude as Yoongi _tries_. They’re in this stupid situation together so he owes it to Yoongi to at least try back. “Since we’re home for a while we’re working on recording our next English album plus shifting through what sound we want for our next comeback.”

“Oh,” Yoongi says with a smile. “That’s cool that you guys are doing so much.”

It’s not really that much, they’ve spent the last two years working nonstop so it doesn’t really feel like more. “It's pretty much the usual,” Kihyun says with a shrug. “And I have a couple of covers I’m prepping and an OST. So it’s a ton of variety at least.”

“Are you planning on doing a solo release? Like a mixtape or anything?” Yoongi asks, sounding genuinely interested. 

Kihyun sighs and steps fully into the living space, plopping down in one of the chairs flanking the low coffee table. “Eventually?” Kihyun says, with a frown. “Probably, yeah. But we have a lot of stuff going on so I’m not sure when I’d have time, but eventually, yeah.”

“Cool,” Yoongi says nodding. “If you need anything when you start working I’m around. If you want help or whatever.”

“That would be deeply weird,” Kihyun says, a little too honestly. He knows how well the songs Yoongi has produced have done but he’s not sure how they exit this and do that, even if they come out of this as friends. “Everyone is gonna think I’m taking advantage of our relationship or something.”

“So?” Yoongi says with a shrug. “I think people would give us a pass if they think we’re in love.”

Kihyun raises an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know how good of an actor you are but I’m not going to pretend to be in love with you just so people aren’t weird about it,” Kihyun says with a laugh. “It’s just regular weird, we don’t even really know each other anymore.”

“We could get to know each other again,” Yoongi says, voice quiet. He looks almost shy but Kihyun brushes that aside - Yoongi has never been shy with him. “We’ve got this opportunity and it’s been dropped into our laps, why not take it?”

Kihyun gives him a wry look, he doesn’t know if he wants to laugh, scream or cry. “I don't know if you remember how you shut me out and then dumped me because I haven’t forgotten.”

“I remember,” Yoongi says, voice quiet as he stares at his hands. “But it's not like I don't have regrets, because I do.”

Kihyun sighs. “Yeah, we all have regrets. That’s one of those things about growing up, you can look back and wonder how things would have turned out if you didn’t do that one stupid thing,” Kihyun says, sighing again. “I’m sure we would have handled everything differently but it happened and we can’t ignore it.”

“I’m not trying to ignore it, Kihyun-ah, I’m trying to make it right,” Yoongi says looking up from his hands. 

“How?”

“We used to be friends,” Yoongi says, shifting his laptop off of his lap. “Before anything else, we were friends first. Even if I couldn’t fix anything else I’d want to fix that.”

Kihyun tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. He wonders if it means he’s grown as a person that his first instinct isn't to scoff and tell Yoongi he’s fine with them never being real friends again. Once upon a time that would have been his reaction, he was still so angry and hurt and forced to fold all of those feelings into a tiny box and swallow it as if it was nothing. 

Now he just feels worn out and worn down and honestly, he could use more friends. If the last two years have taught him anything it’s to hold on to the real friends with everything he’s got. 

“Yeah, okay,” Kihyun says, his voice choked up. He looks at Yoongi as if daring him to comment on it and when he doesn’t he continues, “I guess we can work on being friends again.”

Yoongi smiles, face lighting up as the corner of his mouth quirks up and says, “Cool.”

*  
Things are still weird. 

They move around each other more carefully than they ever did when they were friends or lovers or anything in between and their schedules only kind of overlap. But neither of them sleeps much so they’re often up and working late at night, sharing space in silence. If he wasn’t trying, Kihyun would just retreat to his entirely too large guest room but Yoongi is trying so he has to try in return.

He’s thinking of that on another of their late nights when he’s sore from dance practice but too wired to sleep so he takes his laptop and wanders out into the living room. Kihyun isn’t expecting Yoongi to be home, there have been a few nights where he hasn’t come home at all but this isn’t one of them. Instead, Kihyun finds Yoongi on the couch, feet pressed against the low coffee table with his headphones on, and his laptop propped on his knees. 

Yoongi doesn’t look up as Kihyun wanders in and plops himself into the chair he’s dangerously started thinking of as his own and pulls up the two folders that have kept him up at night. 

He pulls up the song he’s been working on, the scarier one that doesn’t have the benefit of someone else’s words or music, and after a quick peek to see that Yoongi is still immersed in his own work, hits play on this one and starts humming along to the music playing in his ear. 

Kihyun is immersed in the song, trying to work through a tricky bit that doesn’t quite hang together when he’s startled by Yoongi poking his arm. 

“Shit!” Kihyun says, nearly jumping out of his skin. He pulls out his air pod and says, “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry,” Yoongi says, looking like he’s trying not to laugh. “I called you a couple of times but you didn’t hear me.”

Kihyun shakes his head. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” he says, pausing the song and hitting save on the lyrics. “What’s up?”

“That song you were just singing, is that new?” Yoongi asks. He doesn’t go back to his spot on the couch, instead sitting on the ottoman in front of Kinyun’s chair to wait for his answer. 

Kihyun nods. “Yeah, it's,” he starts, stopping to laugh at himself. “It’s just this little thing i’ve been working on. You know I don’t really write a lot of music.”

“It’s good,” Yoongi says, gesturing at the laptop. “Based on the little bit I heard you singing.”

“Yeah?” Kihyun asks, feeling self-conscious. He hasn’t really tried to write much, leaving that to the other members while he focuses on his voice but he’d been encouraged to try so here he is, trying to write a song while recording music for their next comeback and prepping to do an OST. “You only heard that little bit,” Kihyun says. “And that's the bit I’m stuck on.”

“Can I?” Yoongi asks, waving a hand at Kihyun’s laptop. “I could maybe take a look, try to help you get unstuck. If you want.”

Kihyun looks at him for what feels like an eternity but he knows it is just a few seconds. “Um, sure. Don’t be nice just to spare my feelings,” Kihyun says passing over his AirPods. 

Yoongi raises an eyebrow at him. “You know that’s not me. If it’s bad I’ll tell you, I’m just not gonna be a dick about it. Promise,” Yoongi says, popping the AirPods in his ears and hitting play. 

Kihyun watches as he closes his eyes and tilts his head as he listens. Kihyun can tell when he gets to the part that’s been tripping Kihyun up for days. Yoongi frowns and this little divot forms in the middle of his forehead and Kihyun just barely stops himself from reaching out to smooth it out. It’s the type of thing he would have done way back when, when they were the type of people who touched and not whatever awkward in-between place they’re in now. This space where he knows so many intimate details about Yoongi but they’re barely friends, still tiptoeing along that path. 

Yoongi opens his eyes and Kihyun jerks backward into his chair, having drifted too far into his space. Yoongi blinks at him. “I see what you mean,” Yoongi says, popping the air pods out of his ear and dropping them into Kihyun’s hand. Kihyun feels hyper-aware of everything, the quick brush of Yoongi’s fingers against the palm of his hand which is the most they’ve touched in years, the way Yoongi’s lips quirk up crookedly as he smiles, the way their knees are nearly touching; it’s a bit too much. “I don’t think that line really works with the rest of the verse? It’s too tentative.”

“Hmm,” Kihyun says, thinking about it. “Do you really think so?”

Yoongi shrugs. “You’re not a tentative person. You know what you want and you work to get it. Maybe if this was a song for someone else, but for you? No,” Yoongi says. 

“And that’s really worked out well for me,” Kihyun says with a laugh bordering on bitter. He watches as Yoongi blanches and almost laughs for real. “That wasn’t about you, sorry. Just you know, everything.”

“Yeah, no I get it,” Yoongi says nodding. “This year has been a lot.”

“It has been,” Kihyun says. “Thanks for listening, I have to think a little more about what I’m trying to say here.”

*  
Some of the awkwardness seems to abate after that. Kihyun doesn’t feel quite so anxious about joining Yoongi in the living room late at night, to show him the music he’s working on or talk about how tired he is after dance practice or just sit quietly not talking at all. It’s nice to just fall back into that friendship, to make jokes, and not wonder if he really has the right to do that anymore. 

Kihyun is in the kitchen on a cold afternoon, chopping vegetables to make dinner when he hears the low beep of the door opening. He wouldn't normally be able to hear it, but he’s got his music paused and the apartment is silent so he’s not surprised when Yoongi joins him in the kitchen. 

“Hey,” Yoongi says, coming into the kitchen and leaning against the other side of the island. 

Kihyun looks up from his work, flashing a brief smile before he says, “Hey yourself, did you finish up early?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says with a shrug. “We had some filming to get done and then I got out of there as soon as I could. So,” Yoongi says, raising an eyebrow. “Are you cooking enough for both of us or do I need to start figuring out what I’m ordering in.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “What kind of asshole do you think I am?”

“Do you want me to answer that?” Yoongi asks, ducking when Kihyun tosses a tomato at him. 

Kihyun glares at him. “There is enough food for both of us because I’m not a monster, get over here, and help or get out of my kitchen.”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow at him but he washes his hands and comes around to help Kihyun prep dinner. They work in silence for a while, Kihyun unpausing the music and singing along as it spills out from his phone, but it’s not awkward. It’s strange how quickly he’s fallen back into this easy familiarity with Yoongi where they can move around each other as they work in a silence that feels comfortable. He doesn’t want to look too closely or poke too hard at that.

Later when they’re sat down at the table in Yoongi’s kitchen that could easily fit seven and probably holds more, Kihyun can’t help smiling to himself, even though it feels a little sad. He feels like a real grown-up, in a house instead of a dorm and sitting down to dinner at a real table instead of sitting on the floor or his bed and eating when he can. It’s depressing that his ex not filing paperwork and his management not having an exterminator come to their dorm while they were on tour is the reason he’s getting to experience this and not because he’s done anything to make it happen. 

“So,” Yoongi says, breaking the quiet. “Has your staff talked to you about anything today?”

Kihyun looks up from his plate and narrows his eyes. “Anything, like what exactly?” he asks, already on his guard. The last time his staff wanted to talk to him about _anything_ he learned he was married. He feels rightfully paranoid about what new surprises they might spring on him. 

Yoongi sighs. “Okay, but don’t be mad at me, I just happened to run into one of our folks earlier today.”

“Min Yoongi if you don’t stop dancing around whatever fresh bullshit, you’ll wish you’d never been born,” Kihyun says glaring. 

“Wow, okay, still very hot when you’re mad,” Yoongi says, mostly to himself and Kihyun feels his whole face heat up. 

“Yoongi!” Kihyun exclaims, trying and failing to distract himself from the idea that Yoongi thinks he’s hot. He knows he’s handsome, that’s always been true but Kihyun has been pretty sure that before Yoongi stopped loving him he stopped being attracted to him and he doesn’t know what to do with that not being true. 

Yoongi laughs, voice quiet, and says, “Okay, okay. It’s nothing bad, not really.”

“That’s not filling me with confidence right now.”

Yoongi snorts. “They just want us to think about doing an interview together.”

“With who?” Kihyun asks, already filled with dread. He wouldn’t even know how to lie about any of this. _Oh hey we’ve definitely not been broken up for years and aren’t just doing this to avoid a different scandal_.

Yoongi makes a face and Kihyun groans. “Why is it always Dispatch? They’re the ones who were gonna leak the marriage license.” 

“Yeah and they waited until our teams could meet so they consider it a professional courtesy that we grant them an exclusive interview about it,” Yoongi says frowning. “It won’t be that bad.”

Kihyun lets his eyebrows creep up until he’s sure they’ve practically met his hairline. “Are we talking about the same Dispatch? Those people who tried to ruin Hoseok’s life? Who exposes idols for dating and then leave them to deal with the fallout? That _Dispatch_?”

“I know they’re not great,” Yoongi says with a sigh. “But, look at how this has shaken out for us. We’re not getting inundated with fans telling us to enlist or die or that they can’t look at us the same way anymore, mostly people have been nice.”

Kihyun snorts. “Yeah but I honestly thought that was mainly about you,” Kihyun says with a shrug. “You’re very famous and somehow your,” Kihyun pauses a moment to make air quotes, “marriage hasn’t interfered with your work, the fans weren’t gonna turn on you.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes. “They could have,” Yoongi says with a sigh. “I’m not actually special, anyone’s fans can turn on them or the public, you know how people get about idols dating.”

“No, I know people get weird about it but come on, you have to admit it’s weird that people are being ridiculous about this in the opposite direction.”

Yoongi nods. “I mean, sure, but it could just be the current trend. People are bored so instead of calling us unprofessional, they think it’s romantic or something,” Yoongi says with a shrug. “It’s better than needing to go dark for a month to avoid getting harassed.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s fair,” Kihyun says, running a hand through his hair. “I’m still not sold on this interview thing.”

“Think of it this way,” Yoongi starts, elbows on the table as he leans forward. “We obviously can’t tell them the truth, it’s worse than us just keeping it a secret for three years. So we get to set the narrative and highlight our need for privacy and all of that stuff.”

Kihyun squints at him. Yoongi is right, it would be better for them to set the narrative but there’s something else there. “What happened?” Kihyun asks, suspicion lacing his voice.

“What do you mean?” Yoongi asks, frowning.

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “Yoongi cut the shit. There’s no way you agreed to this so easily,” Kihyun says with a sigh. “So tell me what happened.”

Yoongi groans. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Your face isn’t a big deal, stop stalling.”

“Fine,” Yoongi grits out, exhaling loudly. “Maybe someone tried to break into the Big Hit building,” Yoongi starts, ignoring Kihyun’s loud inhale. “And maybe someone else tried to follow my car home a few days ago.”

“Were you planning on telling me this or was it just gonna be this secret while you pushed for this interview?” Kihyun asks, angry and relieved at the same time that none of those people were successful. 

“Eh,” Yoongi says with a shrug. “Probably I was going to tell you?” he says, squawking when Kihyun throws a napkin at his head. “I didn’t want you to worry, and you know it’ll die down after we talk publicly.”

Kihyun points at him. “Next time you tell me about it immediately, you know I hate it when you do stuff like this. That hasn’t changed.”

Yoongi nods and says, “Okay, I will.” Then he pauses. “So are we doing the interview?”

“Yeah,” Kihyun says with a sigh. “Yeah I guess we are.”

*  
The date of the interview comes faster than Kihyun expects, a little more than a week before he’s set to move back into the Monsta X dorm. It feels strange to feel sad to be moving back to his regular room in his dorm with his members. In a few short weeks Yoongi’s house has started to feel like home and Kihyun doesn’t want to poke too closely at that feeling. 

They show up for the interview separately, Kihyun post-recording and Yoongi clearly fresh from a post-dance practice shower and briefly prep with their PR teams. 

Park Eunji pulls Kihyun aside as the Big Hit folks huddle with Yoongi and asks, “Are you ready to do this?” voice soft and sweet even as she looks at him like she’ll kill him if he says no. 

Kihyun nods. “Yes noona,” he says. “But this is the only one I’m doing. It’s bad enough we’re encouraging this.”

She sighs. “You know this might trigger more interest so just keep an open mind.”

“We’re prepping for a comeback, the only questions I want to answer after this are about our music, our choreography, that kind of stuff,” Kihyun says, voice firm. He’s not going to keep lying about his fake relationship to keep the gossip hounds interested. It’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t even have agreed to this much if they were still actually together. “We need to underline our need for privacy and a focus on the work from here on.”

“You’re killing me here,” Eunji sighs, looking up at the ceiling, frustration clear in the line of her shoulder. But she nods and taps something onto her phone. “Fine, I will make a note that you’d rather not do more of these types of interviews. But I’m not making any promises.”

Kihyun nods. “I can live with that.”

“Good,” she says and then nods in the general direction of Yoongi and the Big Hit team. “It looks like it’s time, good luck.”

Kihyun joins Yoongi and watches as the Big Hit team takes the lead in introducing them to the reporter, Lee Jihye, and setting the ground rules for the interview. They’ve already agreed that their teams will not be in the room but that’s the only concession they’ve made. The Big Hit team has made a point of throwing their weight around but it just puts Kihyun on edge. Dispatch has no reason to be nice to them, and he’s not naive enough to think they won’t find a way to make one of them look bad and he’s betting on it being him. 

He smiles when the business part is done and follows Yoongi and Lee Jihye into a modestly comfortable room set up with two small couches facing each other. 

“Thank you both so much for taking the time to speak with me,” Lee Jihye says with a smile as they take their seats. “Obviously this is an unusual situation but I’m hoping we can help sate some of the curiosity that’s been kicked up around your relationship.”

Kihyun smiles. “Of course, this isn’t how we would have wanted things to get out.”

“Yeah, we’ve both been focused on our careers and we didn’t want our private lives to be a distraction,” Yoongi says, jumping in.

“Of course,” Lee Jihye says nodding seriously. “But I think many netizens and your own fans are curious how you’ve been able to keep this a secret for so many years. Most people trip up in some way.”

Yoongi shrugs. “We’ve been busy,” he says, ruefully. “There really hasn’t been time to worry about any of that.”

“It’s almost like we blinked and several years had passed,” Kihyun adds. “Obviously we weren’t working that hard at keeping things as private as possible or we wouldn’t be here now.”

Lee Jihye laughs. “Yes, you didn’t even file your marriage license privately, how bold of you!”

Kihyun frowns and looks over at Yoongi. “Did you know we could have filed privately?”

“Uh, no,” Yoongi says with a snort and then looks back at Lee Jihye and smiles. “We were pretty young when we got married so we didn’t even know that was an option, honestly.”

Lee Jihye stares at them for a second before she shakes her head and says, “Wow. So, just want to pivot back to how you make a marriage work when you’re as busy as you two clearly are, what is your secret?”

“Um, well,” Yoongi starts then looks at Kihyun. “Why don’t you go first and I’ll add on.”

Kihyun glares at him, for just a second when Lee Jihye looks down at her notes. “Oh, I see how it is. I know what you’re doing.”

“Is it working?” Yoongi says, eyes big.

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “The biggest key is communication, like how just now Yoongi didn’t want to answer that question so he tossed it at me.”

“It wouldn’t have worked if he didn’t know exactly what I was doing.”

“And I believe you alluded to this focus on communication in your relationship in the past, before any of us knew about it, is that correct?” Lee Jihye asks, looking from Kihyun to Yoongi. 

Kihyun frowns. “When? Can you refresh our memories?” He can’t think of a time he ever, purposefully talked about his relationship with Yoongi in anything but the vaguest terms. And he’s spent the last few years pretending that Yoongi doesn’t exist. 

Lee Jihye, scrolls down her iPad until she finds a note and says, “I believe it was when you spoke of meeting up after awards shows to talk about your health?”

Yoongi starts laughing and Kihyun tilts his head back and closes his eyes. He remembers that back when they were still in love, trying to make it work and meeting up when they stayed in the same hotel; they didnt even usually have sex, they just, talked. “Uh, yeah, that was some of the only alone time we’d get. I can’t believe no one asked any follow-up questions on that.”

“Talk about our health?” Yoongi repeats under his breath, laughing.

“Like you would have done better,” Kihyun says, slapping his leg. 

Yoongi keeps on laughing and says, “Could I have done worse though? I doubt it.”

Lee Jihye laughs at them, shaking her head and Kihyun abruptly remembers where they are and what they're doing. He’d let himself get distracted and doesn’t particularly want the readers of Dispatch to know the dynamics of what’s left of his relationship with Yoongi. 

“And I should assume that keeping in line with your desire for privacy is why you had a wreath delivered that was signed from Big Hit?” she asks, looking over at Yoongi who’s gone quiet at the question. 

Kihyun doesn’t laugh but he does turn to Yoongi and smirk, eyebrow lifted. 

“Okay, yes, that was a little bit silly,” Yoongi says with a sigh. “People knew we were friends, I could have just sent it as a friend but I panicked a little bit.”

“I had to explain to our staff why Big Hit was sending us flowers!” Kihyun says. “I just told them you were shy so they would stop asking so many questions.”

“So it was a little bit romantic then?” Lee Jihye asks, but doesn’t give them a chance to answer. “Let’s take a moment to talk about how you balance work with your relationship again. Since you’re both idols, has that competition ever impacted your relationship?”

Kihyun frowns at her. “No, we do different things and nothing good ever comes from comparing yourself to others.”

“Really?” Yoongi says, looking over at him. “You’re generally a very competitive person.”

Kihyun shrugs. “With myself? Sure, I want my team to do our best. But it’s always going to be our best compared to ourselves, not anyone else.”

“Huh,” Yoongi says, then flashes a quick smile at Lee Jihye. “I’ve mostly been trying to compete with myself but we’ve never really talked about that kind of thing, you know? Feels like sticky territory when we’re both still active in the industry.”

Lee Jihye smiles and nods. “That’s very interesting, that you don’t try to compare yourselves to each other. I imagine that’s part of what makes your relationship work, since you’re not bogged down with professional jealousy or resentment.”

“That’s an enormous waste of time and energy, why be resentful when you’re working hard and doing your best?” Kihyun asks. He’s had plenty of time to be resentful of so many things, but never the people he cares about. “If someone I love is successful I’m happy for them, I want them to have good things happen to them. To be upset would make me question my feelings.”

He looks over to find Yoongi looking back at him with a strange look on his face. Kihyun quirks an eyebrow at him and Yoongi smiles, shaking his head. 

“I think if it’s real, your friendship, your relationship, whatever, then when you see that person succeeding - and that’s whatever level or type of success they’re pursuing, then you feel happy,” Yoongi says voice low. “That’s your person, doing that thing they worked so hard to do and being recognized for it and that’s amazing.”

“Great perspective from both of you, now I know we’re nearly out of time so I wanted to ask one final question, any chance that you two will be doing any sort of collaboration?” Lee Jihye asks, eyes bright and wide. 

“Uh,” Kihyun says, momentarily at a loss. He doesn’t know how to say that it’s never going to happen in a way that’s not going to piss off two fan bases and netizens but he’ll try. 

Yoongi laughs. “I have a thing I’m working on,” he says with a shrug. “I just have to convince this one,” he adds, tipping his head at Kihyun, “that it’ll be fine if I produce a song for him.”

“When exactly did you start working on something? I think I’d know if you were working on something.”

Yoongi shrugs. “I have my secrets, you don’t know everything.”

“I see you every day, the only time you’d have to do it is when I’m recording,” Kihyun says and then stops slapping a hand over his mouth. “You didn’t hear that, I didn’t say that.”

Lee Jihye laughs but says, “Of course not, no comeback spoilers at this time. But I am curious, how do you make time to see each other every day?”

“Oh,” Yoongi says, shrugging again. “There was an issue at his dorm so it seemed like a good time to stay together for a while, since we don’t get to very often these days.” 

Kihyun watches as Lee Jihye’s smile grows larger and larger and feels dread pool in his stomach. He has never seen a reporter for Dispatch get that happy and had things turn out well for him. 

“How romantic,” Lee Jihye says with a dreamy sigh that sends Kihyun’s eyebrows creepy up. “Is that why you started working on this song? As a little bit of a love letter to your husband since you’re able to live together.”

Yoongi looks over at Kihyun eyes wide and then looks back at Lee Jihye. “Um,” Yoongi starts and then pauses. 

Kihyun rolls his eyes, this is exactly why he didn’t want to do this. He doesn’t expect Yoongi to fake some sort of romantic feeling that hasn’t been there for him in years. “Sorry, but we’d really rather keep those sorts of things private, I’m sure you understand?” Kihyun says, raising an eyebrow at her. “There are some parts of a relationship that shouldn’t be discussed in public.”

Lee Jihye looked surprised for a moment but then shook herself out of it and nodded quickly. “Oh of course, of course,” she says and then smiles. It’s a smile that has more edges than it should. “You have to keep a little mystery with the fans, I understand,” Lee Jihye adds, winking at Kihyun. 

After that she wraps up the interview, they shake hands again and they head home.

*  
When they get home Kihyun putters around, anxiety seeping out of him in waves. He doesn’t know why it feels like he’s missed a step somewhere and he’s waiting to fall. He cleans both bathrooms, then the kitchen and he’s contemplating a deep clean of the refrigerator when Yoongi steps out of his room and frowns at him. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, watching as Kihyun stands in front of the open refrigerator door. 

“Thinking about if this needs a deep clean.”

Yoongi frowns at him. “Why? I’m not here often enough to keep the fridge stocked most of the time.”

Kihyun sighs. He’s been cleaning to avoid thinking and he doesn’t even know why. It's not a big deal, it’s a good thing but it still makes him anxious, like he’s about to miss out on something. 

“I got a text from one of my managers,” Kihyun says, closing the refrigerator. “Our dorm should be ready for us to move back in at the end of the week so you know.” He shrugs. “I wanted to make sure I left things clean.”

Yoongi looks at him, face blank. “Oh, right,” he says, nodding. “I guess it makes sense that your dorm is probably ready for you guys by now.”

“Yup,” Kihyun says nodding. “The group chat is talking about maybe doing a family dinner when we get back home or something.”

“That’s cool,” Yoongi says. “But you,” he starts then stops. “You don’t need to clean the house before you go, I usually have someone in to do that before and after tour.”

Kihyun raises an eyebrow at him. “Okay, so I’m saving you some money and making sure it’s done right.” 

Yoongi laughs. “There’s no done right, clean is clean, Kihyun.”

“Only people who don’t clean think that,” Kihyun says, turning back to the fridge. “There’s surface clean and then really clean, and if you’re only giving someone a day or so before and after you go out on tour you’re only going to get surface clean.”

Yoongi just stares at him and laughs quietly shaking his head. “I cannot believe I called you hot, this is the least I’ve ever been attracted to you.”

Kihyun ignores the little flare that pops up again at the idea that Yoongi is still attracted to him and pokes his head out of the refrigerator, pointing at him and says, “This is me at my hottest, get into it.”

“Take off those gloves and I’ll consider it,” Yoongi says and then laughs and ducks when Kihyun throws one of the gloves at his head. “I didn’t know really clean came with a strip show.”

Kihyun glares at him and throws the other glove as Yoongi catches that one laughing. “Okay, I’ve had about enough of that, give me the glove back so I can finish working.”

“You seriously don’t need to do that, you’re my guest,” Yoongi says, shoving the gloves behind his back. 

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “I know I don’t _need_ to do it, I want to,” Kihyun says with a sigh. “You don’t have to get all noble about your damn refrigerator Yoongi, I can do this for you.”

“Why though?” Yoongi asks with a frown. “Letting it get a little grody for a while isn’t hurting anything.”

“It’s hurting me knowing it. Like, I’m physically suffering here.”

Yoongi laughs, which is what Kihyun wanted. There’s no need for things to get so serious over cleaning, he just wants to do something nice for him and also not spend his last few days here living in filth. They’re friends now, he thinks, it _feels_ like it at least and he can do things for his friends. 

“Well,” Yoongi says, still laughing a little. “I wouldn’t want you to suffer.”

Kihyun nods, “I knew you were a good person.”

“But you still don't _have_ to do it,” Yoongi adds. “We could have someone come in to do it.”

Kihyun frowns at him. “You know you can let someone else look after you a little right? You don’t always have to be the hyung.”

“I’m not doing that,” Yoongi says, scoffing. 

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “Yes you are, you always do this. It’s okay to let people take care of you.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do?” Yoongi asks, quietly. 

He stares at Kihyun but Kihyun ignores it and laughs. “I always wanted to take care of you,” Kihyun says with a shrug. 

He doesn’t add that that was kind of their biggest problem, something he can see now with a few years and a lot of experience. Kihyun wanted to take care of Yoongi and Yoongi wasn’t interested in being taken care of, it's the kind of bittersweet realization that makes him wonder if they were always doomed to fail, even if they were just two salarymen working their office jobs.

Kihyun is turning back to the refrigerator, gloves in hand when Yoongi grabs his hand and pulls him back. 

“I always liked it when you took care of me,” Yoongi says, grip tight on Kihyun’s hands. “I just didn't know how to accept it.”

“Yoongi..” Kihyun says, confusion breaking across his face. “What.”

Yoongi shakes his head and slides his hand along Kihyun’s jaw. “You have to tell me if this is okay, okay?”

Kihyun nods. He has just enough time to think, _This is maybe the single stupidest thing I’ve evers done_ before then Yoongi kisses him. 

*  
It’s been a while since Kihyun kissed anyone, and even longer since he was this close to Yoongi, but it’s like falling back into something familiar, like every time he opens his mouth to sing - familiar, and comfortable and right. He can’t poke at that feeling too closely as Yoongi takes advantage of his distraction and backs him up until he’s leaned back against the refrigerator with Yoongi’s tongue in his mouth. 

Kihyun pulls Yoongi closer, one hand dropping to the small of his back while the other palms his neck. Yoongi falls into him, his body warm along Kihyun’s front where the refrigerator is cold along his back. It’s nice, almost comfortable, but then Yoongi grabs Kihyun’s ass, and Kihyun moans into his mouth as he’s pressed even closer, and he can feel Yoongi’s erection against his own, and then it feels like everything speeds up. 

Yoongi stumbles backward and Kihyun follows him, and keeps following him until they’re in Yoongi’s bedroom helping each other out of their clothes. There’s a little thought at the back of Kihyun’s mind that keeps telling him this is a terrible idea, but he squashes that down into the smallest, darkest corner of his brain as Yoongi tugs him down onto the bed, pushes him onto his back, and wraps his fingers around Kihyun’s dick. 

“Is this okay?” Yoongi asks, voice low and rough. 

Kihyun flashes back to the last time he heard that particular voice, several years ago in the only love motel they could afford. He shakes off the memory and nods, saying, “Yeah, yes, please,” and groans at the first touch of Yoongi’s lips on his dick. 

Even with all the memories that have come floating back to him over the last few weeks, Kihyun has forgotten how good Yoongi is at this, how his boasting about his talented tongue has never been just talk. It’s overwhelming as Yoongi swallows him down only to slide back up as he massages Kihyun’s balls and it’s been so long that Kihyun knows he won’t last. 

He ignores the urge to fuck up into Yoongi’s mouth and reaches down, fingers sliding through Yoongi’s hair to caress his cheek as he says, “Yoongi, wait,” voice choked off as Yoongi’s tongue presses under the head of his dick. “Please, you need to stop,” Kihyun says, trying again.

Yoongi pulls off of him, looking up with a frown and asks, “Is something wrong? I know it’s been a while but I’m usually pretty good about teeth.”

Kihyun laughs and shakes his head, pulling on Yoongi’s arm until he crawls back up Kihyun’s body and settles beside him. 

“What’s wrong?” Yoongi asks, reaching over and brushing his thumb along Kihyun’s cheek. “It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind.”

Kihyun shakes his head and wraps his hand around Yoongi’s wrist dragging Yoongi’s palm to his mouth to press a quick kiss. “It’s not that, I was about to come.”

Yoongi raises an eyebrow at him. “You know that’s the point right? I suck your dick, you come and then sing my praises for the next ten years, yeah?”

Kihyun rolls his eyes, pushing Yoongi onto he rolls onto his back laughing. “I haven’t even touched you yet, asshole,” Kihyun says, rolling with Yoongi until he’s draped half across him. 

“Maybe you don’t remember,” Kihyun says, leaning down to kiss Yoongi’s throat. “But I actually like touching you,” Kihyun adds, kissing down until he can flick Yoongi’s nipple with his tongue. “I liked it a lot.”

Yoongi groans as Kihyun runs a hand up his thigh, fingers skipping past his dick to flick his other nipple. “I remember,” Yoongi says, fingers slipping into Kihyun’s hair. He tugs, and Kihyun goes along, letting Yoongi pull him down into a kiss. “You can touch me, you can fuck me if you want.”

“Are you sure?” Kihyun asks, kissing along his jaw. “We don’t have to,” he adds, teeth grazing Yoongi’s ear. 

“I’m sure,” Yoongi says with a groan. “I’m really, really sure, unless you don’t want to?”

Kihyun snorts. “I want to,” he replies, biting Yoongi’s ear just a little before kissing back down his neck. 

“Good,” Yoongi says, tugging on Kihyun’s hair again to kiss him and then pushing him away as he goes to crawl across the bed to look for lube.

Kihyun laughs at him as he stretches across the bed, naked butt wiggling as he reaches but finally he flops back over, lube in hand. 

“What are you laughing at,” Yoongi asks as Kihyun reaches for him. 

Kihyun shakes his head. “Nothing, you’re just really cute.”

“Am I?” Yoongi says, with a raised eyebrow as Kihyun climbs over to settle between his legs and starts slicking his fingers. “Tell me more about how you think I’m cute,” he adds, gasping and arching his back as Kihyun rubs the first slick finger against his hole before slowly pushing in. 

Kihyun works him open slowly, the way he remembers Yoongi liking, and starts talking. “Well,” he says, dragging his finger in and out. “You have a cute butt, little enough to really grab a handful if I wanted,” Kihyun says as Yoongi fists his hands in the sheets. 

“And when you do that little half-smile thing?” Kihyun says, as he slowly adds a second finger. “Adorable,” he says, voice low as Yoongi arches his back. “You know how cute you are.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi says with a groan. “Fuck, but I like hearing you say it.”

Kihyun laughs, leaning down to kiss him again. “Oh yeah,” he says, as he adds a third finger. “What else do you like hearing me say?”

“Kihyun-ah,” Yoongi moans, fingers digging into Kihyun’s back. 

“Hmm?” Kihyun asks, scraping his teeth across Yoongi’s nipple as he works his fingers in and out, twisting as he works them in to open him up. 

Yoongi pinches him and laughs, a short breathless little laugh when Kihyun yelps. “Please fuck me already, I’m ready, I’ve been ready.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes as he slowly eases his fingers out of him. “I forgot you get all pushy like this.”

“I’m not pushy.”

Kihyun snorts as he slicks himself up and slides his arm under Yoongi’s leg, pushing up until it’s nearly over his shoulder as he lines himself up. “Is bossy a better word?” Kihyun asks as he starts to push in, watching Yoongi’s face for any sign that he’s moved too fast. But Yoongi doesn’t look like he’s in pain, back arched and face turned away as Kihyun slowly eases into him.

When Kihyun finally bottoms out, Yoongi turns his head and opens his eyes again, blinking up at Kihyun. He settles one hand on Kihyun’s thigh where it’s pressed up against him, and the other hand wraps around the back of Kihyun’s neck, pulling him down into a searing kiss that makes Kihyun slide into him just a little bit deeper. 

“Fuck,” Yoongi whispers against Kihyun’s lips. “Move, now.”

“See,” Kihyun says into the tiny bit of space between them, “bossy.” But he moves, slowly thrusting in and out as they share breath. Yoongi’s grip on his thigh going tighter with each thrust as he tips his head back and exposes his long, pretty neck.

Kihyun scrapes his teeth along Yoongi’s neck, smiling as he moans and then joining him when Yoongi tightens around his dick and then he’s not thinking of much at all, fucking him hard as everything else falls away and there’s nothing but the sounds of their breathing and the places where they’re connected. Kihyun knows Yoongi is close when he starts to tighten around him again, when he grabs Kihyun’s arm and his fingers dig in so tight Kihyun is sure he’s going to have bruises but he doesn’t slow down. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna,” Yoongi pants out head thrown back. 

Kihyun leans down and kisses him, quick and rough, and says, “Come for me baby,” leaning his forehead against Yoongi’s collar as he feels his own orgasm building. 

Yoongi moans, and then he’s coming in warm spurts across Kihyun’s stomach and that’s all it takes to send Kihyun over the edge after him. Kihyun whites out a little, eyes closed tight as he comes but when he recovers enough to open his eyes and let Yoongi’s leg down he’s greeted with a sight he hasn’t seen in way too long, Yoongi in tears.

It happened a few times when they were together, after a particularly intense orgasm but Kihyun had mostly forgotten it was a thing. He reaches down and runs his thumb across Yoongi’s cheek wiping away his tears and kisses him and lets Yoongi pull him close as they lay together and try to catch their breath. 

*  
Kihyun wakes up hours later, disoriented and unsure of where he is until he hears Yoongi snore next to him. He freezes but Yoongi just rolls over and continues on sleeping. Kihyun abruptly remembers the night before and feels foolish for doing something so stupid. It’s not quite morning so he swings his legs out of bed and is just about to get up and collect his clothes when he hears Yoongi groan from the other side of the bed. 

“Where are you going?” Yoongi asks, voice raspy with sleep. 

“Um,” Kihyun says, pausing and then pushing down the brief flash of guilt for nearly sneaking out. “I was going to shower and go back to my room.”

Yoongi sits up, rubbing his eyes with the flat of his hands. “Why? This wasn’t like a fuck and run situation.”

Kihyun frowns at him, turning and propping his leg back on the bed. “Then what exactly is this? Hooking up with your exes doesn’t usually turn out that great.”

“It doesn’t have to turn out bad,” Yoongi says, with a sigh. “You’re not usually the doom and gloom type.”

Kihyun snorts. “Yeah, well. Things change,” he says then sighs. “We were doing pretty well I thought, I don’t know this all feels like a step backwards.”

“You didn’t act like it felt like a step backwards when we were having sex,” Yoongi says, pinning him with a hard look. “I don’t know why you feel like that now.”

Kihyun sighs. “Don’t do that. Neither of us was thinking clearly and you know it,” Kihyun says, gesturing between them. “Like are you expecting me to believe that suddenly you’re into me beyond a proximity thing? You told me to my face you’d made a mistake when you thought you were in love with me.”

“Don’t,” Yoongi starts, sighing as he drags a hand down his face. “Please don’t hold that against me.”

Kihyun shakes his head. “I’m not, at least not anymore,” Kihyun says, with a smile that he doesn’t mean. “I get that before it was a big infatuation, proximity thing for you and I’m not,” he says then stops and laughs. 

“I’m not going to pretend that hasn’t sucked for me, it has, a _lot_ but we’re friends again now and I’m not willing to throw that out,” Kihyun says, shaking his head and blinking fast to try to hold back the tears that have decided to make an appearance. He’s fine with it, he’s come to terms with it or at least he thought he did before he fell back into all of the same habits. 

When he looks up Yoongi has gone pale and then scrambles up onto his knees. “Wait, that’s not what I meant,” Yoongi says. “Please don’t cry, Kihyun-ah.”

Kihyun snorts. “It’s fine. You cried, now I’m crying. Sometimes our faces leak, get over it.”

“I cried because I had an intense orgasm,” Yoongi says with a frown. “You’re crying because I was such a stupid lying asshole to you.”

Kihyun shakes his head. “It’s not your job to manage my feelings,” Kihyun says. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” Yoongi says, quietly. “I really fucked this up,” Yoongi says, taking a deep breath. “Listen, it wasn’t. I wasn’t,” he starts, then stops and sighs. “I was still in love with you when I asked for a divorce.”

Kihyun blinks at him and then blinks again. “Excuse me?” he asks, sure he’s misheard. They were many things to each other but Yoongi had never been purposefully cruel. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Yoongi?”

“I thought we needed to break up,” Yoongi says, eyes wide. “We were distracting each other from work and we were so busy anyway, it just made more sense then to break up.”

Kihyun doesn’t even have it in him to feel angry, he just feels tired. “Right,” Kihyun says, glad that he’s already cried and doesn’t have anything else to give. “So you just decided for both of us huh? No point in talking or explaining, just tell me our whole relationship was a mistake and go?” Kihyun adds and realizes, no he’s not too tired to get mad. 

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Kihyun says, standing up and looking around for his boxers. All this time he’d thought he’d misread something or pushed too hard or done _something_ and now this. He wants to scream. 

Yoongi is up and on his feet by the time Kihyun has found his shirt. “No! I just. I wanted you to understand how badly I’d messed up, okay?” Yoongi says, pleading. “I knew it was a mistake while I was doing it and it was like I couldn’t stop, once the words were out there they were out there.”

“You knew it was a mistake and yet you did it anyway?” Kihyun asks, scoffing. “That’s what you say about eating too many sweets, not about getting a fucking divorce.”

“I’m so sorry,” Yoongi says, near tears. “You don’t know how much. And there was no way to fix it, you wouldn’t even talk to me, you wouldn’t even look at me and then I didn’t even notice when I didn't get a confirmation back from the lawyer, we were so busy. I thought I missed it.”

Kihyun laughs and it sounds bitter to his own ears. “You _dumped_ me, you get that right? You told me you didn’t love me and you asked for a divorce and you expected us to what? Go back to being friends because you didn’t really mean it like that?” Kihyun asks, incredulously. “Come on.”

“I didn’t think I’d lose you completely, even if I thought us breaking up was a good idea, I still thought we’d be friends.”

“Most people aren’t friends with their exes when they’re still in love with them,” Kihyun says, speaking slowly. He can’t remember a time where Yoongi was this much of a goddamn dumb ass. It’s incredible to think he’s spent years being in love with someone so stupid. 

Yoongi pauses, staring at him and Kihyun can’t decipher the look on his face. “Are you?” Yoongi asks, voice low. 

“Am I what?” Kihyun asks, hostility still bleeding into his voice. He feels wrung out, exhausted from this conversation, and this information. 

“Are you still in love with me?” Yoongi asks. His voice is still so, so low like they’re trying to avoid waking up their members as they sneak out of a dorm. 

Kihyun’s eyes go wide and he sputters for a moment. “That’s not, that has nothing, I cannot believe you-” he says before he’s cut off. 

“Because I still love you,” Yoongi says as he laughs to himself. “I’m still in love with you.”

“You can’t just say that,” Kihyun hisses, furious for any number of reasons, not least of which is that he’s let Yoongi get between him and the door so he can’t run away. 

Yoongi shrugs. “Why not? It’s the truth,” he says, lips quirked up in a half-smile. “It’s always been you, it’s _only_ been you.”

“You can’t just _say_ this like a get out of jail free card,” Kihyun says, trying to plan his escape. He cannot be in this room hearing this, he needs some space and air and to not feel like his heart is going to explode out of his chest. 

Yoongi shakes his head. “I know, I know, I’m not trying to get out of it. I screwed up, so much. I got scared and pushed you away thinking I could preempt you pushing me away, “ Yoongi says with a sigh. “If I’d been able to afford a real, good lawyer we wouldn’t even be here, you wouldn’t be talking to me and I can’t do that again. I love you too much.”

“You are such an asshole.”

“I know,” Yoongi says with a smile. “Believe me I know. But you still haven’t said.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes. This is the second-worst conversation he’s ever been in. “This is ridiculous.”

Yoongi glares at him. “Don’t do that. I’m not a mind reader, I don’t know just because you’re thinking it at me.”

“Oh whatever, you know I love you,” Kihyun says, glaring at him. “You have _known_ , I never tried to hide it when we were together. I thought I was over you, I was out,” Kihyun says, voice nearing a growl. “I can’t believe you dragged me back into this bullshit.”

Yoongi just smiles at him, his big, sly smile that he flashes when he’s gotten away with something or won a game. “You love me,” he says, rocking back on his heels. He looks ridiculous like this, naked but for his boxers, with come still drying on his stomach. No one who looks so silly should see so smug. 

“So what, I’m still mad at you,” Kihyun says, folding his arms across his chest. “And you’re still a jerk.”

Yoongi nods. “I know but I can work with this,” Yoongi says with a smile. “You could let me make it up to you?”

“How?” Kihyun asks, intrigued in spite of himself. 

Yoongi reaches out a hand to him and Kihyun takes it, even though he’s still mad, he’s still _hurt_ but he doesn’t want to be the person that ignores it when Yoongi reaches out, not anymore. 

“I’ll write us a song,” Yoongi says and smiles, squeezing Kihyun’s hand. 

Kihyun squeezes back, a smile breaking free across his lips, and says, “Yeah, okay.” 

*  
_**Epilogue: Three Years Later**_

It’s a quiet night; they’ve both been back from tour for a few days, just long enough to get used to sharing space again and they aren’t really _doing_ anything. It still feels strange to not live in a dorm, to come home from tour and sleep in their bed in their home and have people be so used to them together that they don’t really care anymore. It hasn’t stopped anyone from asking when they’ll release another song together, but that is a question they’ve mostly dodged during their enlistments. 

Yoongi is set up at the other end of the couch, toes tucked under Kihyun’s thigh as he works on his laptop, headphones around his neck. 

Kihyun looks over at him, at the way he’s frowning and squinting at whatever bit of song isn’t quite working for him, and smiles. “We should get married,” Kihyun says, into the comfortable quiet of their living room.

“Yah, we’re already married,” Yoongi says, not looking up from his computer. “Remember how we didn’t get divorced and the universe forced you to take me back?”

Kihyun rolls his eyes and flicks Yoongi’s ankle. “Are you done?” Kihyun asks, eyebrow raised. “I mean that we should do it again, with a real wedding this time. With people other than us there.”

“So what, we throw a party and call it a wedding?” Yoongi asks, looking up with a frown. “We could just throw a party.”

Kihyun throws a pillow at him. “I don’t want to _just_ throw a party,” Kihyun says. “I want to stand up in front of our friends and family and promise to blah blah blah forever and I want us to both mean it this time.”

“You’re really serious, huh?” Yoongi asks, voice quiet. “You want to do the whole wedding thing, ceremony, and all of that?”

“Yes.”

“We won’t be able to keep it secret, not with all of our members and family and everything,” Yoongi says with a frown. “Dispatch is definitely going to find out.”

Kihyun shrugs. Dispatch found out they moved in together for real about three days after Kihyun was discharged from the army; them finding out they’re getting remarried after they broke the news the first time is the least of his problems. “If they know, they know. It’s not like it’ll be big news, as far as everyone else is concerned we’ve been happily married for nine years and they had their fun with that three years ago.”

Yoongi smiles at him. “You know you’re never getting rid of me right?” Yoongi says. “We don’t have to get married again to prove it.”

“I know that Yoongi. It’s not about that,” Kihyun says with a sigh. “When we got married it was a big secret. It didn’t even _feel_ real then because nobody knew about it, my parents didn’t even know until Dispatch broke that story. And then we broke up for four years,” Kihyun says with a shrug. “I know we’ve been married all this time on paper but I want to do it again, for real forever this time.”

Yoongi smiles again, scooting up onto his knees to crawl over to Kihyun on the couch. “Sometimes I forget you’re a big romantic,” Yoongi says, pushing Kihyun back until he’s laying down on the entirely too large couch. “You could just say, our first wedding was unromantic and you want something better.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Kihyun says, even as he pulls Yoongi down with him. “I don’t want to get married anymore, I’m going to move to Jeju and become a farmer.”

Yoongi laughs, his mouth pressed against Kihyun’s throat. “Nah, you can’t take it back. You’ve asked me to marry you know, it’s rude to back out.”

“You haven’t even said yes yet,” Kihyun says with a laugh. “You’re just trying to get an engagement blow job, I know your tricks.”

“That’ll take the place of the ring you haven’t gotten me,” Yoongi says, fingers making quick work of the fly of Kihyun’s jeans. 

Kihyun is silent and then looks away as Yoongi’s fingers still as he’s trying to pull Kihyun’s jeans down and finds the bulge in his pocket. 

“Babe,” Yoongi says, pulling the box out of Kihyun’s pocket and turning it over in his hand. “Did you buy me an engagement ring?”

Kihyun shifts up onto his elbows and tries to shrug. “I told you I wanted to marry you,” Kihyun says. Just because he didn’t make it a big _thing_ doesn’t mean he hasn’t been thinking about it for a while. 

Yoongi smiles, leaning forward to kiss him and tipping them both back onto the couch. 

“So is that a yes or are you still trying to distract me?” Kihyun asks, laughing into Yoongi’s mouth. 

Yoongi snorts as he pulls back. “Of course it’s a yes, I told you you’re never getting rid of me.”

“Good,” Kihyun says, and pulls him down and kisses him again. 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Title and really entire mood of this fic is brought to you by Carly Rae Jepson - Dedicated Side B


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